Russia's War Against Ukraine

[GDS_Starfury]

can the soviets pull out north of Kiev?  Im looking for info if the Ukrainians continued to close the northern end of that thrust.

[ArizonaTank]

Russian statement that they are backing away from Kyiv looks like a head fake so far.

Pentagon says no real movement of troops.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-pentagon-doesn-t-buy-russia-s-claim-that-it-s-withdrawing-troops-around-kyiv/ar-AAVDJlr?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7bd0d39096544e80be2d5c68cd2a1d71

[SirAndrewD]

Here's some incredible footage. 

Almost like watching a game of Close Combat at times.

[GDS_Starfury]

another map update now with Ukrainian advances!
https://twitter.com/JominiW/status/1508632912534589444

[GDS_Starfury]

on the second map of that tweet thread you can just taste how close the Ukrainians are to pocketing a LOT of russians.
soooooooo close.
also the explosions at a russian munitions dump outside Belgorod are going to do no favors for the Donbass troops it supports.

[GDS_Starfury]

when one IED is so old fashioned.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1508459829446299648

any ideas on how to embed this as a video and not a link?

[GDS_Starfury]

another photo of 80 years of russian armor.



odd that they wasted ammo on the T-34.

[MengJiao]

when one IED is so old fashioned.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1508459829446299648

any ideas on how to embed this as a video and not a link?

   Yeah, the post blast tweets are always unusually unenlightening.  How many times does somebody have to say, "Oh the Russians don't care about loses" (you'd think this war
sorta suggested maybe they should? after all of an attacking force of about 200 thousand, about 40,000 seem to be hors de combat (shot, blown up, captured, run over by their own men,
wounded, frostbit, deserted, gone back to Belarus to "regroup" etc. etc.)...maybe a little caring would have saved them and everyone else a lot of trouble.

   i recall one interview where some newsy dude was saying "Whats been happening tactically with the Russians?  How about tactics?  Can they do something tactical? Can they try some new tactics?
   are tactical things happening?  How are their tactics?  What about their tactics?  Is something tactical going to happen?
          Are the Russians going to try some new tactics?" and the military expert said, "They need a new army.  This one is wrecked."

[ArizonaTank]

odd that they wasted ammo on the T-34.

When the adrenal is running high, and you turn your turret and see the silhouette of a tank....

Reminds me of US carrier aircraft attacking Tojo's old flagship Mikasa in Yokosuka in 1945. Mikasa had been a defanged memorial ship since the early 1920s.

Or, the Japanese attacking the USS Utah, a defanged target ship at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese pilots had been told not to attack it since it had limited military value...but young men, testosterone and live torpedoes combined and they sunk it anyway.   

[GDS_Starfury]

Im laughing that the T-34 took the hit, and while cracking in half, held together way better then most current russian tanks Ive seen.
also of note is the wrecked track in front is one of two destroyed SPGs in the picture.

[GDS_Starfury]

Somewhere in the Ukraine a russian turret is practising an extreme form of social distancing from the rest of the vehicle.

[al_infierno]

Ukrainian 152-mm D-20 (sorry, don't know the best way to resize these)

[MengJiao]

  Bret stephens in the NY times offers this opinion:

The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated.  Of course, Bret suggesting something else:  Putin always just wanted the Donbas (or some other place
around there with lots of natural gas).  Bret suggests that Putin's plan has been brilliant all along: attack civilians to force negotiations and get the Donbas.  I find the idea that Putin
has some big plan that is working out as planned unconvincing.  Sure, getting something out of the mess seems like a plan of sorts and i guess Putin could claim he meant for all this to happen,
but there seem to be some big downsides to whatever brilliant plans he has running.
For example:  Why completely destroy the credibility of your armed forces to the extent that US intelligence wonders how they overestimated the Russians by such a huge margin?
And this is not a simple case of throwing away a few armies and the troops from DNR and LNR -- all those malfunctioning advanced missiles are technologically very close to what the Chinese have.
This mess downgrades the credibility and value and deterrent effect of the most advanced parts of three of the world's major military powers: Russia, China and India.  They all now have
megatons of this questionable gear.
And for another thing -- Putin doesn't have the Donbas (or the nearby gassy place) yet.  Will he get it?  If he doesn't, will it be possible even for op-ed writers to suppose Putin has some
brilliant plan?
And another thing -- Assuming that reducing Ukraine to a client state like Belarus would have been a reasonable plan before the war, the opposite seems much more likely as the war goes on -- its quite possible that Ukraine might hold on and have its neutral status as a  non-client guaranteed even more securely than if it had joined NATO.  The tectonic powershifts there might involve the loss of Belarus as a Client state and the emergence of Turkey as a regional power roughly equal to Russia.  Could even an op-ed writer suppose that was part of good planning on Putin's part?
No part of any possible rational plan that Putin may have had has actually seemed to work out so far and getting the Donbas and some more natural gas seems more like an excuse to continue the war
indefinitely than anything else.

[Gusington]

^Good post Meng. Interesting what you say about Turkey. I know Erdogan would claim that Turkey is already a regional power in the area. Maybe this war will see them rise even higher?

[JasonPratt]

Ukrainian 152-mm D-20 (sorry, don't know the best way to resize these)

These should be able to embiggen again, back and forth, with a mouse click.

The key is to add a space after img, and then  width=1024 before the close of the square brackets.

So, changing square to fancy brackets in order not to trigger the code, it would look like this: {img width=1024}

You can also temporarily reply to this by the "insert quote" button and see how the addition works out in the code. The width can be set to anything you like, but 1024 has worked well for me in the past.


Here's Star's super-helpful map resized down, too:



...I duly note that Odessa still hasn't been invaded yet. ;)  :hide:  #:-) L:-)

(I'm poking fun at myself for somehow thinking last week that Odessa had been beach-headed by a Marine force, presently to withdraw due to lack of support, before being caught, overrun and destroyed by the Uks.)